Archive for simeon jackson

Welcome to another edition of Long Balls: Canadians Abroad. It’s a service for those without time to wade through multi-page forum threads to keep tabs on Canadian footballers. We won’t list all of the Canadians abroad, just the weekly performances we feel are most relevant to our readers. Or in the case of Isidro Sanchez, relevant to no one really.

The way these weekly updates are headed we may as well just call them Josh Simpson, a weekend in review. The Canadian winger/forward scored the match winner for Manisaspor in a 2-1 victory over Kasimpasa (video here, head to the 1:03 mark), and this one was a beauty. He’s simply in fantastic form at the moment and let’s all hope this holds out for the next, say, four years? At the moment Simpson is tied with four others in the Turkish top-flight goal scoring race with six, one behind Mamadou Niang of Fenerbahçe who has seven.

Welcome to another edition of Long Balls: Canadians Abroad. It’s a service for those without time to wade through multi-page forum threads to keep tabs on Canadian footballers abroad. We won’t list all of the Canadians abroad, just the weekly performances we feel are most relevant to our readers. Or in the case of Isidro Sanchez, relevant to no one really.

Score, that is, in Norwich City’s solid 3-0 victory over Bristol City on Saturday.

As per a request from a reader, I scoured the Interweb for a decent video clip of Jacko’s brace; sadly, all I could find was this:

Those were Jackson’s second and third goals for the Canaries, where he’s been used mostly as a super-sub (only three of his eight league appearances have been starts). But he seems to be impressing his boss, Paul Lambert, who said: “Goalscorers are always judged on their goalscoring record and Simeon’s first goal was first class and his second was excellent.” Continue reading →

Canada’s head coach, Stephen Hart, has declared numerous times that his only priority is to qualify our men’s national team for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Picking up on that theme, some members of the Voyageurs have created a Mission 2014 banner to remind everyone of this singular focus. The banner, as Rycroft notes in his latest column, is meant to be adorned with signatures and well wishes from Canadian supporters across the country.

Join the mission. Hopefully if you’re in the Toronto area you’ve got tickets to Saturday’s game already; but even if you don’t, come down to Maro (135 Liberty St.) at around 2:30 p.m. to make your mark. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what you look like or whether you could even name a single player on the Canadian team. This is our team, all of ours — and this is our way of taking part in the long, winding road towards the next World Cup.

As for Saturday’s game, I dropped in on Canada’s final training session down at BMO Field earlier today, and had the chance to make what I think (if I do say so myself) are some keen observations: Continue reading →

In the coming days, Canada head coach Stephen Hart is set to release the rosters for the team’s upcoming friendlies, against Peru on September 4 (in Toronto) and against Honduras on September 7 (in Montreal). Considering the position the team finds itself, most (myself included) would say this is a good time to “blood the pups”; that is, take a look at younger players with little experience for the national team, to see first-hand what they’re capable of.

That being said, it’s also critical to try to get a result from these games, as we need to move up the FIFA rankings to better our lot when it comes to the World Cup qualifying draw. What to do, what to do?

This is by no means an actual roster, or a starting 11; rather, it’s speculative musing about the short- and medium-term future of our men’s national team: Continue reading →

Just to keep up what some would call our unhealthy obsession with young Canadian striker Simeon Jackson… he scored his first goal in the Championship this morning, a stoppage-time tally in Norwich City’s 2-0 win over Swansea. I didn’t see the game, but an admittedly biased source says that Jacko finished “superbly” on the goal. Update: Video footage confirms the quality of the goal.

Up next for Simeon and the Canaries? A Carling Cup date with Blackburn on Tuesday. Considering the largely-reserve-squad lineups that many teams run out for that competition, we could very well see one of Canada’s established strikers of the future, Jackson, against one of our potential strikers of the future, Junior Hoilett.

Prior to their match last Friday, I headed over to Norwich City’s website and checked the player profile of their newly-acquired Canadian striker Simeon Jackson. I was dismayed to see his nationality listed as “Jamaican” (he was born there), so I emailed the team and asked if the profile info could be changed. Here is the response I got:

“You’ve raised a good point, so we phoned Simeon directly to confirm his official nationality. As you are probably aware, Simeon grew up in Canada and so qualified for a Canadian passport. He has made it clear to us he is proud to play for Canada and wishes his nationality to be changed on the website to Canadian!

This area of our site is provided centrally by the Press Association and not by Norwich City FC’s media team. We have notified them that we would like the change made so watch this space!”

Beyond a sense of personal gratification at having gotten this change made (though not as of yet), I’m also quite pleased at reading the words “he has made it clear to us he is proud to play for Canada”.

You don’t hear or read those often enough. Yet there they are. All the more fodder for Some Canadian Guys Indulging in Unabashed Boosterism of Simeon Jackson.